Okakura Fūken

Dear gaming people of the Western world — Actually, I don’t want to distinguish you from gaming people in Japan; I’d prefer to refer to you and I as “us”. Let me start over. Dear Gaming People:

We have believed in the vision of a future in which gaming people and non-gaming people respect each other, and people recognize the high value of culture even if they have no personal interest in it. We have been of the expectation that misunderstandings regarding gaming people would diminish as the market grew. We imagined that every society on earth would grow more liberal and we would eventually be accepted as a matter of course. That was the future we expected.

Of course we also knew human folly and senselessness, but we felt compelled to hold onto our expectations for the future. Perhaps this was because many games predicted liberal cyber-societies of the future with startling plausibility.

Well, just in case you never had any such expectations, I would appreciate it if you could accept that premise for the present.

In the present, games have undergone many innovations in one way or another and now boast high interactivity, high entertainment value, enhanced playability, new designs, ever-improving graphics technologies, virtual reality, electronic sports, play-by-play commentary and more. Today many people play games beyond the borders of nationality, gender and language. They communicate with each other in a virtual world. To gaming people, video game consoles were a “digital device from the future”, but they were here in the present for us to interact with long before the likes of cellphones became ubiquitous. As a result, we gaming people have used these devices since we were children. Games may have been one of the key factors that allowed us to easily adjust to today’s information-oriented society. Gaming is also one of the medias which took the initiative in predicting that the personal computer and the internet had potential for innovating and propelling games to new levels. The older medias only accepted these technologies with bad grace long after the masses had recognized their value. We gaming people know that SEGA envisioned a future in which console games and the internet would combine into one and realized the concept earlier than anyone else — that is, the Dreamcast. But it was too early!

Games are not just something you play; video games are a unique media that has adopted emerging technologies and expanded their potential through years of experimentation. We gaming people are honored to join that history, but the shining success of gaming has made some people envious. These people make light of gaming people since we look like pushovers at first glance, and some of them have decided to hitch a ride on the coattails of gaming history by pretending to admonish us.

Today’s world seems very strange to gaming people. This is because our hopes for the future have come true, but only halfway. Gaming culture has grown to become immensely popular, but we as gaming people are still ostracized. If one considers the past, the perception of gaming people has not changed overmuch.

Yes, for a long time, gaming was taboo. Gaming was looked down on as a lousy ‘habit’ for childish people. As a hobby, it was depicted as being diametrically opposed to more mainstream activities like sports or dating. The targets of these insults were usually adults who were labeled as obsessives playing with children’s toys. We gaming people were treated as the archetypal ‘gross nerds’ from Hollywood films. Well, that’s enough about the past. What about today?

Over the last 20 years, the gaming market has grown much bigger and the technology in the gaming industry has progressed so much that it’s now impossible to ignore the effects of games on society. If you include the likes of Japanese anime and American cartoons, an entire culture has grown up around the appreciation of fictional characters. It is no longer taboo to talk about gaming and there is no longer any need to hesitate when doing so. “Gaming”, in stark contrast to gaming people or “gamers”, is now viewed as something of a cool cyberpunkish culture. Celebrities, mass media, academics and even government officials — everyone has jumped onboard and is now hip with gaming. There’s a Japanese proverb for this sort of behavior: kachiuma no shiri ni noru, literally “to hitch a ride on the ass of the winning horse”. So, I’m repeating myself, but what is the present situation?

Today, when the freedom of our hobby is facing a serious crisis, we have been called back to this familiar place to defend the precious, intangible somethings of gaming culture. And just like before, it is only the hardcore gaming people who dare to assemble at the call. I hold no predilection for any given generation. I will only say that — regardless of age or generation — it is deplorable that the pioneers, who made the sacrifices of discovery and pushed the revolutionary ideas, should never enjoy the benefits of their labor. It is a bitter, ironic outcome.

Once again, it is gaming people who choose the danger of social exclusion to protect the culture we love. Few people can make such a decision, but it is bravery like this which allows any culture to endure. This is not a choice for gaming people alone, but also for companies and developers which make video games. They have walked alongside us, but that does not mean that they will remain on the ‘pioneer’ side of this conflict in the future.

Do we have to go into hiding again and build a community which consists of only us, the risk-taking social pariahs? This is one possible future that could come to be. But before we consider that future, we need to speak now to the general public who have no affiliation to GamerGate or Anti-GamerGate.

Most people don’t take action by themselves. Sometimes, they willfully try to ignore the facts that surround them. But they are not fools. And they, the ordinary people, make the final judgment regarding everything in a democratic society.

First, to address the masses, we gamers need to have respect for ourselves. Then we must begin to tell the story of our history and culture: About what we have seen, done, and all of the exciting experiences we have known. About the mercilessness of the console wars. About the mountains of terrible games with lovable quirks! Perhaps the people won’t understand our words, but they will understand that we love gaming. And they will understand that it is gaming which made us into decent, conscientious men and women.

Look at yourselves, gamers. Look at me. I can’t understand a lick of English — I can’t speak it. And yet I stand in solidarity with you. How could such a thing be possible? It is because of gaming, which you and I have both enjoyed. It lets me talk to you as if we were family. My experience with gaming has been the same as yours. Games are the language that you and I share. Games have connected us and brought us together.

GamerGate is a struggle for the liberty and fairness of gaming culture as well as internet journalism, but it is also much more. GamerGate is about the problem of distinguishing truth from falsehood in today’s information-oriented society: an important theme in cyberpunk and dystopian SF literature as well as an important subject for philosophical discussion. GamerGate is each of us providing our own answer to the question of what gaming culture is and was. In doing so, we reaffirm that precious, intangible something which gives gaming its value. At the same time, we will leave behind a legacy of our own: GamerGate. And depending on how successful that legacy is, we may yet change the future of gaming.

If you ever feel lost, remember the following words:

— Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid 2

“What though the field be lost? All is not lost” — Lucifer, Paradise Lost

There’s a certain future which I fear the coming of. It’s a future in which all fiction disappears from the world. A world with no fiction — that in itself sounds like the plot of a novel because it fails to capture the complexities of reality. Nonetheless, my fear is real.

In the future which I envision there will, in fact, be a wealth of media which people will refer to as “fiction”. However, that fiction will be decidedly inferior to the media of the past. To borrow from the film Miracle on 34th Street, the fiction of our own time possesses a ‘wonderful, intangible something’ that gives it value. In my imagined future, fiction will completely fail to stimulate the imagination or enrich the mind. Fiction will not speak poetry to the soul. The fiction of the future will be a disposable, mass-produced product which will only exist to maintain the false notion of free human expression. Fiction will die, and as it dies the soulless, “safe” media that takes its place will be heralded as “innovative” by propagandists and critics. Like the world of Ray Bradbury’s Farenheit 451, fiction will be controlled and destroyed so as not to offend.

However, unlike the various dystopias depicted in science fiction novels, the hypothetical future I have described will not be controlled by despots. Instead of an evil dictator or a rogue artificial intelligence, it will be the collective ignorance of humanity which controls fiction. Individuals will secretly cooperate and compromise with one-another to control the potential of fiction. They will do this because, as slaves to authority, fiction which exhorts the idealistic pursuit of free thought is nothing more than a nuisance to them. Fiction will be judged not based on its content, but whether or not it conforms to the biases of society and how closely it parallels the academic and commercial narrative of authority. Fiction will transform into a medium for the exhibition of “safe”, bombastically “epic” stories driven by base emotionalism. The public, for its part, will buy this new fiction in droves because the unchallenging, socially-approved ideas within will make them feel safe and happy with themselves.

Just as I have predicted the arrival of this future, I also predict that no one will believe me. My vision of the future is flawed. Namely, I what would be society’s motivation in creating such a dystopia? The reader may ask themself, “what is the point of regulating fiction? It’s only make-believe.” Many people will undoubtedly read this essay but remain assured that no such future could possibly come to exist.

The necessity of such a society is questionable. Even in the case of totalitarianism, a reason must be presented in order for the people to accept their own submission to power. In totalitarianism, this reason is presented as the need to increase the gross output of the nation. What, then, is the objective of regulating fiction? Is it for the sake of the suppression of revolutionary thoughts? That does not seem to be the case; I had western society in mind when developing this thesis, and it is not authority which controls thought in western society. Instead, free expression is attacked by individuals who feel compelled to restrict expression. They do this in spite of the fact that, in the scope of human existence, their actions are the opposite of creation. They are “uncreators”, and in their mission to “deconstruct” art they destroy it. The question is, why?

When one surveys the landscape of today’s gaming and internet media industries, the presence of the uncreators is keenly felt. With just the click of a few links, we are presented with the ongoing encroachment of oppressive criticism and unnecessary regulation affecting entire genres of art, namely games, anime, science fiction and comic books. Moreover, this encroachment on freedom is being perpetrated not only by anonymous individuals but authority figures in journalism and academia, the personal interests of whom are not clear.

The actions of the uncreators are haphazard and impulsive. From the perspective of a gamer, their behavior resembles the scandal-mongering of yellow journalism. They have no commonality in origin or occupation. They do not resemble one-another in social position or in thought. The only commonality which seems to unify this gemeinschaft of divergent personalities is a mentality which demands the utter rejection of discourse with and dehumanization of their perceived “enemy”.

To protect the diversity of their own culture, gamers have unified as a community under the banner of #GamerGate and have begun to dispute the attacks made against them. The uncreators’ true intent, however, has not been satisfactorily apprehended. Gamers have experienced difficulty in understanding the mentality of their opponents: individuals who would attempt to devalue cherished personal rights like the freedom of speech and fiction, hold those rights hostage, then ransom off the privilege of exercising them. The only thing gamers have understood is that the individuals which comprise the mob arrayed against them do not understand the reason for their own actions.

Right now, every community and every discussion occurring on the internet is being guided in a certain direction. This is not the work of some shadowy government agency or a secret society. It is populism and sensationalism which are responsible. This phenomenon, this pressure to politically align which manifests in and spreads among communities, was named kuuki by the Japanese writer Yamamoto Shitihei. It correlates roughly with the western concept of “groupthink”. This word, the dangerous thinking it embodies and the warning it serves: these are the most important lessons my nation learned from the tragedies of the second world war.

Here, now, I will narrate the truth―the true character and mentality―of the kuuki which teems just under the surface of gaming journalism. I will explain why this culture war ignited. And, if I am able, I will try to illuminate the path that guides gaming away from a needlessly tragic and dystopian future.

As an aside, I’d like to point out that I am Japanese. Some people may question why a person who can’t speak English has appeared at this crucial juncture. In order to explain, it will be necessary to look back on the dawn of the internet and the ideals that era embodied. The character Kusanagi Motoko from Ghost in the Shell once prophetically said “the net is vast and infinite.” Her prophecy came true, but as reality teaches us: The internet being infinitely vast does not necessarily mean that it is full of infinitely diverse ideas.

—Nishimura Hiroyuki, founder of 2channel

Once upon a time, when the Internet was a new frontier for human communication, it was a place where no one could be fettered by rules. It was a place in which we entrusted our hopes, because we thought it would become a new utopia of free thought. In the early days of the Japanese Internet, we were almost too trusting of outsiders; when your community is managed by the people you think of as neighbors, it’s easy to become overly optimistic. We were peers—comrades.

This was the mentality shared by the “hackers” that populated the Japanese Net during its initial diffusion. Hackers―in other words, us. Not all of us had an exceptional faculty for programming, but many of us excelled at things like writing and art. It was the hackers, in the wider application of the term, who first filled the Net. Sometimes serious and sometimes in jest, employing new a new language of our own creation, we spent night after night building our new home. We debated and wrote articles. We triggered flame wars and got dragged into them. It was nonsense and it was anarchy, but it was the stuff of legends.

From the latter half of the ‘90s up until today, I feel that we have lived in the vanguard age of Net culture. We were the discoverers and trailblazers. We were the ones who got to directly contribute to the formation and spread of a new subculture. At one time, a lot of people on the Net had a somewhat cyperpunkish self-image. At that time in Japan, it was more or less required that you also be an otaku to participate in Internet cuture. It’s not a coincidence that a large portion of the Net adopted science fiction, comics, anime or gaming as its symbol. We otaku love these things. It was the future depicted in these works of fiction that guided the formation of our own Net culture. We built communities like 2channel in homage to that future.

From 2010 onwards, it was the otaku who triggered a cultural uprising in their own back yards. We were exiled from our own homes, or abandoned them by our own will. We made our stance clear towards the likes of Internet journalists and dubious site administrators. What irritated us more than anything was the heavy-handed control placed on our homes by our own site administrators. There was always pressure from without; chan culture in Japan is the constant target of internet media smear campaigns. We were used to it. The betrayal that came from within — from administrators and moderators and even users who claimed to be the same architects of chan culture as the “hackers” — that betrayal was much worse. In the end, only a few of the old otaku were cognizant that the mentality of the users around them had changed.

“Our last enemy was us.” — Anonymous 2channel user

I was surprised when I learned that all of the events I've described so far possess a western analogue. Specifically, there were two incidents on 2channel that possess an eerie similarity to the GamerGate event: the stealth marketing and fake 2channel incidents.

The first incident was a self-imposed exodus triggered by strong community suspicion of astroturfing. Every day, for months on end, the same posts about the same games and anime were posted over and over again. Not only that, but the stealth marketers who made these posts used trolling and other antagonistic means to draw attention to their products. Eventually, the problem became unbearable. An entire 2channel community abandoned their board and, along with other 2channel communities, migrated en masse to a new board called Kenmo. Roughly translated into English, the name of this new community means “hatred for shills”.

The second incident occurred when the former administrator of 2channel, Nishimura Hiroyuki, was ousted by 2channel server operator Jim Watkins over a legal disagreement regarding the ownership of 2channel. In response to this coup de tat, Nishimura created a mirror site of 2channel: 2ch.sc. This fake 2channel uses an aggressive web crawling bot which collects all of the posts from the real 2channel and mirrors them on Nishimura’s site. It is strongly suspected that Nishimura has broken laws by doing this, but has persisted in doing so because of the profit to be gained from selling the private information of 2channel users. This has resulted in a prolonged confrontation between Nishimura and the users of 2channel.

These incidents occurred because the ideas that come out of 2channel have an enormous cultural and economic impact in Japan. 2channel is already the de-facto source of Japanese pop-culture trends, and many new slang terms now widely adopted in Japan originated from 2channel. At the time of the above incidents, all of 2channel’s content — including the posts of the Kenmo community — were being collected, edited for content, then reprinted as articles alongside advertisements by news blogs which are the Japanese equivalent of Kotaku. Not only were 2channel discussions being republished without the consent of the community, they were often selectively edited to misrepresent the truth or attack certain products or groups. Still it wasn’t enough; the bloggers’ need for sensationalist news was insatiable. Eventually, the bloggers resorted to posting inflammatory threads directly onto 2channel in order to reprint the responses. Trolling became a business.

It was the Kenmo community which first accused the bloggers of using 2channel for their own astroturfing campaigns, and began an open revolt against them. As of this publication, the battle between the clickbait bloggers and Kenmo continues. With no end in sight, the Kenmo community is considering a second mass-exodus to places unknown.

As with most conflicts that erupt on the internet, the civil war within 2channel was not reported by the mainstream media. This was due to the unreliable nature of online-based sources. Also, despite the fact that the majority of the Japanese internet has absorbed the culture of 2channel via osmosis and speak some vernacular of 2chan jargon, the average Japanese netizen of today does not recognize the importance of 2channel as a source new ideas. As such, they have ignored 2channel’s plight while continuing to “borrow” from its culture. This free-riding mentality, possessed by many younger Net users, likely correlates to the clickbait blogs’ rise to prominence. In spite of these setbacks, the anonymous users of 2channel have made their intent to oppose net media clear, and are transferring that intent into action.

Within these last few years, the communities of 2channel and 8channel have experienced all of the same social phenomenon: external pressure from mainstream media, internal manipulation by interest groups, exodus and, finally, a declaration of defiance.

Today, the invasion of internet communities by outside elements and the morbidity of internet journalism are worldwide issues. But the opposition against these invaders is also worldwide movement. Of course, this does not mean that all of Japan will rise up and join GamerGate, nor does it mean that there will be a global movement to reinstate true Internet anonymity. Despite the fact that the fate of gaming is likely hanging in the balance, it’s doubtful that the otaku of Japan will show much interest in GamerGate. This is in spite of the fact that all chan sites share a historical association as well as a mutual cultural nucleus of anime, manga and video games. The cause is for this lack of exchange between the western and Japanese communities is an extremely severe language and cultural barrier.

It’s likely that, even if there were a desire among the Japanese chan community to understand GamerGate, they would not readily be moved to action. This is because there is no direct connection between the civil wars of 2channel and GamerGate; the opponents which both communities are fighting are different. What we must strive for, then, is a deepening of mutual understanding and an acknowledgment of each-other’s plights. If that’s possible, the day may come where we can work together.

In addition to the invasion of Japanese Net culture by outsiders, there was another cultural event in Japan which mirrors the underlying causes of GamerGate: An aggressive co-option of anime, manga and games by Japanese academia.

Following the smash hit Neon Genesis Evangelion, there has been a dearth of would-be academics that seek to critique anime via the terminology of French philosophy. And, as is typical in dealings with academia, the creators of a young media gladly welcomed these new, esteemed critics without any rebuttal or demand for verification. Even a significant portion of the otaku community accepted them.

“L’animalisme otaku”, “anime as a rape fantasy”, “the fighting warrior girl as a representation of the male reader’s penis” ad infinitum. The inflammatory arguments made by these academics were not created in the interest of general theory. Instead, they were all characterized by an intent to generate public outrage and, thereby, attention for the writer. Those who were most successful in generating controversey were invited to make appearances at various anime and manga-themed conferences organized by government bodies, NGOs, academic societies and publishers.

This trend was the beginning of an incestuous relationship between academia and populism. Through this relationship, it became possible for politics to seep into academia with the aid of popular art and big business. Conversely, it became possible for academia to exert its influence in realms of public discourse where it hadn't previously held sway: otaku culture.

Under the pretense of “introducing new culture to the ignorant masses” and the banner of “cultural studies”, many would-be academics were appointed to important industry positions. From these positions of authority, these academics dispensed one-sided and often mistaken interpretations of our culture which were then held up as established theory. To give just one example of this behavior, there was a case where a Japanese academic rained criticism on one certain anime simply because it “possessed a narrative”. That is to say, he took issue with the world view which was depicted in this anime because it did not agree with his subscription to the theories of French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard, which state that ideas such as progress, enlightenment or emancipation should be rejected in a post-modern world.

Otaku, for their part, also used the valuation basis of the authoritarian academics to further their own goals and arguments; when discussing the interpretation of their own culture, it’s easy to create opposition among otaku by using the authoritative clout of academia.

These circumstances — as well as their chance coincidence with Miyazaki Hayao’s animated films enjoying enormous popularity among western audiences — were the catalyst for a shift in how anime is viewed. Both historically and generally, in Japan and internationally, Anime became viewed as “art”.

Embarrassingly, much of modern Japanese academia begins and ends with ideas imported from the West. As a result, Japan is especially susceptible to western authority as well as whatever happens to be in vogue in western academia. If Japanese academics were less hesitant to present and argue their own ideas in a global group effort to create new knowledge, the disease that is Tropes Theory may not have spread to the realm of anime and games.

From the perspective of a failed Cultural Studies academic, a subculture which has not yet been academically investigated is a utopia— a pristine land ready to be dominated and exploited. Usually, academics must go through the hardship of authoring novel research while striving to build up their own scholarly achievements. Furthermore, they must do this while refuting the criticism and rebuttals of their peers. The end result is notoriety, influence and personal connections with media and big business. But in the case of the cultural study of anime, the government and the industry welcomed the hairbrained theories of failed academics simply so that they would have something to publish. It is obvious that these events are mirrored in the co-option of the western games industry by “feminist studies” academics, right down to the phony jargon and nonsensical criticisms.

What could this correlation of Internet-based events between West and East possibly mean? I won’t chance any reckless conclusions here, but I believe that anyone could easily imagine my astonishment when I first discovered GamerGate.

Even for people in the West, it’s difficult to truly comprehend what GamerGate is. Opinions on the problem of Game Journalism are formed by a variety of people that hold differing standpoints, divergent expectations and confrontational outlooks. In regards to any given affair, GamerGate and anti-GamerGate arguments run counter to one-another. No matter what detail one examines, the depiction of the overall conflict differs with each description. On the surface, both camps appear to have legitimate points.

However, if the observer is someone who has seen the same events unfold in Japan, the matter of grasping GamerGate in its entirety as well as applying a basis for what is right and what is wrong becomes all too easy, language barrier or no. This is because many of the things occurring in games journalism in the West have a precedent in Japan. If even one incident in the chain of events was different, if even one of the choices made by western gamers differed from the choices that Japanese otaku made, if we in the course of these events had ever selected the easy path of neutrality or capitulated to tyranny, then what I am saying would be completely meaningless. Our situations would not be the same, and we never would have recognized each-other’s plights. However, that’s not the case.

If there is any difference at all between the composition of these social phenomena, it is this: In Japan, only a part of the otaku subculture took up the banner of resistance. In the West, GamerGate has spread to encompass not only many gamers but individuals who previously had no interest in games. It has spread so much that it has been acknowledged by the general public as a social issue. This is a big difference, and it represents the potentiality of GamerGate. The netizens of Japan and the West are both burdened with problems so shocking in their resemblance that it feels like nothing short of synchronicity. This problem which we share by coincidence may hold valuable lessons for us.

Firstly, this synchronicity demonstrates that social conflagrations like GamerGate are not unique to the game industry; if a prescribed set of conditions are met, it’s possible for the same phenomenon to occur in any environment. Secondly, it means that the events which occurred in Japan can be treated as a valuable reference when considering possible outcomes of GamerGate. By using similar incidents which occurred in Japan as a point of reference, it may be possible for the proponents of GamerGate to gain an even more relative and ubiquitous understanding of their own circumstances. Furthermore, by grasping the structural nature of the problems they face, GamerGate will be able possible to make more accurate predictions regarding the outcome of their own consumer revolt.

As I am not a very proficient reader of English, it’s not easy for me to make detailed allusions to game journalism in the West. But, through the comparative analysis of the events in Japan, I will endeavor to aid GamerGate in making decisions for itself. In addition to this, it’s my intention to surpass my role as a commentator on Japanese culture and tender a practicable critique of anti-GamerGate. First, we must win the battle which we are immediately faced with, and keep on winning. I consider it my mission to provide the fundamental arguments necessary for that victory.

The appearance of a social phenomenon like GamerGate, which mirrors our own time-line so closely, is momentous because of the potential for change which it represents. As I will explain in coming chapters, the resistance to clickbait blogs in Japan triggered more changes to the Internet than any recent event in the West. Until now.